[Samurai]

I had gotten the i10 serviced last month. After that I noticed something strange.

One morning I was driving to drop my kid to therapy. And the car was barely moving from the get go, it was acting as if it was having a 10bhp engine. After quick glance at all the meters, I noticed that rpm is at zero! Obviously, the rpm can't be at zero considering the car is moving using engine power. Then I rationalized that the rpm sensor must be faulty, which in turn gives wrong data to the ECM, which might take wacky decisions based on wacky data.

After crawling in this fashion for 2kms, I stopped to drop the kid. After that decided to drive straight to Trident Hyundai for an unscheduled visit. As I started the car again, the rpm meter came back to life and car behaved normal. Now I had second thoughts on going to the service station. If I can't demonstrate the problem, what will they fix? So I went home. When I discussed the problem with my wife, she said it happened to her twice before. So I decided to take the car to the service center, if it happens once again. But it hasn't happened so far.

However, last week I got a routine call from Trident asking whether my car is behaving fine after the service. I said it is generally fine, but for this strange problem. Later that day the SA who worked on the car called me and asked me to get the car to the service station. I said I will do it when I have some time.

Yesterday I got a call from the SA again to get the car to the service station. This time I am already in Manipal, so I told him it will be another two weeks before I can do that. So he offers to visit my house and inspect the car. Rather surprising, SAs making house calls. But then my home is less than 2Kms away from the service center. Anyway, he and a mechanic came in the evening and checked the car, and couldn't find anything. They did some "engine tuning" according my wife and left.

Today I am trying to find out what they did.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by Samurai

That's high! Even my GV is maintained between 30-32psi, never more. For the i10 (or the Santro before) I always keep 29-30psi.

Originally Posted by Samurai

The car is doing fine. But the FE is around 8-9kmpl since the commute is only 2kms each way, hardly any time for engine to warm up.

33 psi is the recommended pressure for i10 MT (Mentioned in the user manual as well as on the driver side door frame)

(Not very sure if the recommended pressure is different for AT variants)

Just wondering if maintaining lower pressure that recommended could be a cause for the low FE.

Rohan

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Couldn't find a generic i10 thread and my i10 thread was last updated two years ago (I think) so am posting this here since lot of i10 owners are on this thread:

I just noticed that the windshield washer reservoir cap was chewed by rats. So I go to opera house Hyundai parts dealer for a new cap.

I was shocked when he told me that the cap costs 700 bucks and the full reservoir with the cap is 850 bucks.

I was about to leave when the shop owner walked in and overheard my conversation with the sales guy about how ridiculous the pricing is. The owner says, just buy the i20 cap. It's the same and costs 60 bucks. Hyundai for some reason has priced i10 parts at a premium he says. He also says that many i10 and i20 parts are common and if I ever needed anything I should check with him first and he'll guide me.

Thought I'd share this with all here.

Attaching a pic of the chewed off part and the packing of the new one with the prt number visible.

[Samurai]

Today I had one more strange experience. As I was driving to drop my son, I discovered that the i10 is having a hair-trigger brake. A slightest press resulted in complete halt instead of slowing down. I was lucky nobody was behind me.

Normally i10 brake behaves in a linear fashion, any like sane braking system. But today it was behaving exponentially. I carefully tried it a few more times and every time it jerked to a complete stop instead of just slowing down.

At the next signal, I had time to wait and ponder about this. Surely this doesn't sound like a mechanical problem, as it was fine until yesterday evening. In fact, it sounded like a software problem, and I have had enough problems with the ECU/ECM in this car.

So I did what any PC user will do. Restart!

The problem went away after that, the brake started behaving linearly once again.

Why is the i10 ECM so screwed up? Never had such problems in any AT or MT car I have owned or driven until now.

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

33 psi is the recommended pressure for i10 MT (Mentioned in the user manual as well as on the driver side door frame)

You may have a point there. I will try 33psi in future, might affect the ride comfort though.

[sridhar-v]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Today I had one more strange experience. As I was driving to drop my son, I discovered that the i10 is having a hair-trigger brake. A slightest press resulted in complete halt instead of slowing down. I was lucky nobody was behind me.

Normally i10 brake behaves in a linear fashion, any like sane braking system. But today it was behaving exponentially. I carefully tried it a few more times and every time it jerked to a complete stop instead of just slowing down.

At the next signal, I had time to wait and ponder about this. Surely this doesn't sound like a mechanical problem, as it was fine until yesterday evening. In fact, it sounded like a software problem, and I have had enough problems with the ECU/ECM in this car.

So I did what any PC user will do. Restart!

The problem went away after that, the brake started behaving linearly once again.

Why is the i10 ECM so screwed up? Never had such problems in any AT or MT car I have owned or driven until now.

You may have a point there. I will try 33psi in future, might affect the ride comfort though.

I faced the same problem, of non-linear braking, in my Santro AT a couple of times in the begining.

Found out that if I pressed the Brake pedal (which is very wide) on the left of the centre- ie. to the left of the Brake lever- I got a very sharp emergency type braking action. So all my plans of using the left foot for braking went out of the window. Am thankful for a very comfortable dead pedal.

[F150]

ecm controls brakes ?
I have to do some research about this.
please let us know if you already know the connection.

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Today I had one more strange experience. As I was driving to drop my son, I discovered that the i10 is having a hair-trigger brake. A slightest press resulted in complete halt instead of slowing down. I was lucky nobody was behind me.

That is a bad one . I shudder to think what would have happened if this happened while cruising on the highway and if one wanted to slow down upon seeing a speed breaker ahead. If the brakes grabbed like that would it not send the car into massive skid or worse a spin or even a roll over? It could also lead to a pile up if the density of traffic is high.

I got myself an i10 AT in March this year and your thread has been quite helpful. So far my car has had no issues apart from the odd rattle from the steering column on some very bad roads. But these issues which you are reporting are quite disconcerting.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by F150

ecm controls brakes ?

Even I didn't think so. But if the problem could go away after a restart, I don't know what else to think.

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Originally Posted by sridhar-v

I faced the same problem, of non-linear braking, in my Santro AT a couple of times in the begining.

Found out that if I pressed the Brake pedal (which is very wide) on the left of the centre- ie. to the left of the Brake lever- I got a very sharp emergency type braking action. So all my plans of using the left foot for braking went out of the window. Am thankful for a very comfortable dead pedal.

The cause of sharp "emergency type braking action" is not due to sensitivity of the brake pedal on the left side. That's because your left foot is used to operate the clutch and as a matter of routine, the left foot is used to applying more force to depress the clutch pedal and the muscle gets something called "muscle memory" due to it. Thus, we inadvertently apply more pressure on the brake pedal while pressing it with the left leg. The right leg is used to minor inputs on the throttle as well as mostly minor brake inputs in crawling traffic. Thus, one feels that brake input is more on the left.

EDIT:

Samurai, most probably it's due to brakes being wet. The disc /drum must have caught a bit of rust and this is the reason for the "grippy" nature. The restart solving the problem was just a coincidence in my opinion.
Also check for a leaking brake cylinder.

[sridhar-v]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

The cause of sharp "emergency type braking action" is not due to sensitivity of the brake pedal on the left side. That's because your left foot is used to operate the clutch and as a matter of routine, the left foot is used to applying more force to depress the clutch pedal and the muscle gets something called "muscle memory" due to it. Thus, we inadvertently apply more pressure on the brake pedal while pressing it with the left leg. The right leg is used to minor inputs on the throttle as well as mostly minor brake inputs in crawling traffic. Thus, one feels that brake input is more on the left.

EDIT:

Samurai, most probably it's due to brakes being wet. The disc /drum must have caught a bit of rust and this is the reason for the "grippy" nature. The restart solving the problem was just a coincidence in my opinion.
Also check for a leaking brake cylinder.

Well! I had not thought of it in that way. Will check out with my right foot on the left part of the brake pedal.

Another thing I have noticed, during periods of heavy rain, is that the rear brake shoes seem to stick to the drum when you start off in reverse first thing in the morning. Moving forwards and a couple of jabs on the brake opens it out. Definitely moisture & rust in play.

[swarnava.m]

Its a little surprising reading about the brake issue here.

Don't get me wrong. I COMPLETELY agree with the non-linear braking of the i10 A/T. First up, I never thought of using the left foot on the brake, and never plan to do that. I have been driving it pretty normally.

As for the brakes, my car is just about to touch the 10k mark, and the brakes have been right this way from the beginning. However, it has never been much of a hindrance, and has actually come in quite handy on a few situations. Slighty OT, but I have mentioned it below.

Yesterday while I was driving on the highway midst heavy rain, there was a mini-bus ahead of me. We were approaching a downhill left curve, when this bus runs over a huge puddle that splashed so much water onto my windscreen that I was completely blinded for about 2 seconds, and was thus in serious danger of hitting the divider as I have absolutely no idea where I was headed. The only thing that saved me was those really grippy brakes, as I came almost to a dead stop. Also, thankfully there was nobody else behind me.

Coming back to the topic, I would just say it takes some time getting used to, and I am able to handle them pretty well by applying minimal pressure on the pedal for normal brake use. Why I don't think it is an issue is because, they were exactly the same way on the test drive car that we drove as well. Either that, or this is an inherent issue with the i10 A/T. But unless it is causing some major mechanical problem in the car, I see no reason to fuss over it.

PS. Just saw some posts regarding the FE. My figures are around 11.5 kmpl during mostly city and outskirts driving. Slightly higher during highway runs, but since I don't do a lot of them, not able to confirm the exact figure. I keep the tyre pressure at the recommended figure, mentioned on the driver door frame, which is 35.. IIRC.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Samurai, most probably it's due to brakes being wet. The disc /drum must have caught a bit of rust and this is the reason for the "grippy" nature. The restart solving the problem was just a coincidence in my opinion.
Also check for a leaking brake cylinder.

It had never happened before and it never happened again. If it was because of wetness or leak, it should have persisted.

Since 2-3 weeks, I was getting calls from Trident Hyundai (Kalyan Nagar) for the 6 month service. This time they were offering home pickup and drop of the vehicle. I finally scheduled the service for today. But I am unaccustomed to such luxury service, besides I wanted some body panel work done. So I refused home pickup, and visited the service center myself.

The cost of routine service for i10 really baffles me these days. The i10 has only done 8900kms in two years, less than 3K since the last service. Yet the estimated cost came to Rs.4575, even after refusing alignment/rotation/balancing. My Grand Vitara gets serviced for less. The SA said alignment/rotation/balancing may be necessary, but I didn't buy it, not after so little use.

In addition, I wanted some body panel repair. Few months back my wife dropped the left wheel into a big pothole at crawling speed while trying to make way for somebody. That resulted in bending the left front fender near the door, although paint was not scratched. Initially we couldn't open the passenger door properly, then I physically pulled/pushed on the panel until restriction became negligible. So I decided to wait until the next service to get it fixed.



After the SA was done with the service details, he called the body repair guy. That guy came towards me, after just glancing at the dent, quotes Rs.4500 for the work. I was incredulous, and said "4500 rupees for removing that dent?".

He says no, 4500 rupees for replacing the whole fender panel. This is simply ridiculous, I am sure it is not more than 10 minutes of tinker job for an expert with a hammer. Besides, after replacing the panel on a two year old car, the panel will not match the rest of the car body, which would have faded. He said the bent is on some structural part, etc.

So, I told him to forget it. I will get the dent removed somewhere else using the traditional method.

[mobike008]

Samurai, I have experienced the same thing with my Hyundai cars.

These A.S.S are hell bent in changing the entire bumper and quote ridiculous prices for even minor dent repairs (which they primarily are least interested in working on and I would say its fair enough considering the volume of cars they get for services and repairs)

Please look for a reliable outside garage for such minor repair works.

[ajmat]

All you need to do is remove the fender and reform it. It was done on my Jetta

[Jaggu]

You can take it to a place Sai Colorium who specializes in body shop, and they can do the job under 2-3k ie if painting is also required. And no issue with color match etc since these guys will have paint mixing stuff in house.